[Guest lecture to
Course, "Introducing Women's Studies: The Public Life of Feminism" -- Women's
Studies (WOMS 2025), Australian National University, 13 April 1999.]

Michael Flood is
an Australian sociologist at the University of Wollongong. Flood gained his
doctorate in gender and sexuality studies from the Australian National
University. His areas of research are on violence against women, fathering,
pro-feminism, domestic violence, the effects of pornography on young people,
safe sex and heterosexual men, men's movements as a backlash to the feminist
movement, men's relationships with each other and with women, homophobia,
men's health and gender justice.

Flood is a
co-editor of the International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities, and
the author of academic papers on men and gender, men’s sexualities,
violence against women, homosociality, fathering, anti-violence
mobilisations, and youth and pornography. Flood has also worked as a
profeminist educator and activist on issues of men and gender; he is
involved in community advocacy and education addressing men’s violence
against women. He coordinates, edits and contributes to XYonline, a
profeminist website providing a range of commentary and research on men and
masculinities, male sexuality, feminism, the men's movement and male
violence from a feminist perspective. He also coordinates The Men’s
Bibliography, an online collection of over 22,000 works on men,
masculinities, and gender.

In the early to
mid-1990s, several commentators on feminism and the women's movement made the
argument that contemporary feminism was dominated by a focus on women as
victims. This argument was made for example by Naomi Wolf in Fire with fire
(1993), Katie Roiphe in The morning after (1993), and Rene Denfeld in The new
Victorians (1995).

This criticism echoes
earlier criticisms of feminism, and especially of those strands of feminism
concerned with physical and sexual violence.

Wolf's most recent book,
Fire with fire, is one of the most well-known such critiques. Wolf was already a
media and feminist celebrity because of her best-selling work The beauty myth,
published in 1990. I'll focus on Wolf's account. And I'll also refer back to
readings and controversies earlier in the course, to try to tie together some of
the areas we've covered.

-- INTRODUCTION TO WOLF'S
MODEL --

In your readings you've
got ch's 9 to 12 of Wolf's Fire with fire (4 of the 18 chapters in total), the
ones giving her account of victim feminism and to a lesser extent power
feminism.

I'm going to focus on
Wolf's account of 'victim feminism', as this is the focus in the readings you've
got from Fire with fire.

But to understand Wolf's
account, we really have to situate her portrayal in the context of her broader
argument about the state of contemporary gender relations.

'GENDERQUAKE' AND THE
'OPEN MOMENT'

Wolf begins Fire with
fire by stating that the 1980s were the backlash years, but from 1991 on, we've
had the era of the 'genderquake' [Wolf, 1993: xiv]. In Western countries such as
the USA, Australia, Britain and Canada, there have been important feminist
victories, women have gained increased political clout, women-friendly
governments have been elected often through courting women's votes, cultural
representations have shifted, and women's movements have been active in large
numbers.

She concludes that "women
have become the political ruling class." [Wolf, 1993: xiv] And she continues,
"they have the historical distinction of being the only ruling class that is
unaware of its status." [xiv] We are at a crucial moment: women will either
seize the moment and realise gender equality, or will shrink away from this and
cling to outdated images of themselves as powerless [xv-xvi].

Wolf says that we are at
'an open moment';

Twenty-five years of
dedicated feminist activism have hauled the political infrastructure into place,
enough women in the middle classes have enough money and clout, and most women
now have desire and determination to begin to balance the imbalance of power
between the sexes. [xvi]

But there are three
obstacles

many women have become
estranged from their own movement; one strand of feminism has developed
maladaptive attitudes; and women lack a psychology of female power to match
their new opportunities. [xvi]

Much of Fire with fire is
an elucidation of these three obstacles, ofŠ The chapters in your readings on VF
relate to the second of these obstacles, the problems with one strand of
feminism.

'VICTIM FEMINISM' AND
'POWER FEMINISM'

Wolf claims that two
traditions are evident in contemporary feminism: VF, and PF. These are not new
aspects of feminism, and both have long histories going right back to the
suffragettes and the push for women's suffrage or the vote.

Introducing the book, she
writes,

There are and always have
been two different approaches within feminism. One - what I define as 'victim
feminism' - casts women as sexually pure and mystically nurturing, and stresses
the evil done to these 'good' women as a way to petition for their rights. The
other, which I call 'power feminism', sees women as human beings - sexual,
individual, no better or worse than their male counterparts - and lays claim to
equality simply because women are entitled to it. [Wolf, 1993: xvii]

At one point Wolf states
that she sees victim feminism only as characteristic of a small minority of
feminists [Wolf, 1993: xvii]. This distinguishes her from other commentators
such as Roiphe, Denfeld or Camille Paglia, who argue that victim feminism is the
dominant or even the only strand of contemporary feminism. Wolf says that most
women's organisations and groups have power feminism goals, but victim feminism
dominates media representations of the women's movement [154]. And power
feminism icons, with which women identify, are rarely claimed by organised
feminism [155]. However, at other points in Fire with fire, especially where
Wolf focuses on the excesses of feminism, victim feminism implicitly is
represented as an important or even dominant form of feminism.

For Wolf, the assumptions
of victim feminism are understandable, especially in response to the concerted
backlash against women's gains. But these assumptions are unhelpful and they're
outdated [Wolf, 1993: xvii].

Victim feminism and Power
feminism

Wolf spells out the
characteristics of VF and PF in the first chapter in your readings.

Victim feminism urges
women to identify with powerlessness and to take on a victim identity. Victim
feminism ignores the power women do possess. It idealises women as naturally
cooperative, nurturant and peaceful, while projecting aggression,
competitiveness and violence onto men or 'patriarchy'. It is sexually
judgemental or 'prescriptive'. It turns suffering into a virtue. It values
anonymity, community and group-think, and self-sacrifice, and is critical of
leadership, public recognition, individual achievement and success. Victim
feminism is self-righteous, evangelical, pessimistic and anti-fun [Wolf, 1993:
xvii, 148-149]

Power feminism is the
opposite of each of these. Power feminism emphasises the power which women can
exert, while attentive to the forces which constrain this. Power feminism seeks
power and uses it responsibly. Power feminism acknowledges that aggression,
competition and violence are just as much a part of female identity as of male,
and sees women, like men, as moral adults. It hates sexism without hating men.
It is sexually pluralistic and unapologetically sexual. Power feminism values
individual voice and identity, the acquisition of money and success, and public
recognition. It is tolerant of difference, and is into having fun while making
social change [Wolf, 1993: 149-150].

If we take this account
for granted, then it's easy to see why some of power feminism is attractive.
Wolf says that power feminism is fun, sexy, and empowering. And for women, their
feminism is not compromised by having sex with men, having institutional
political power, earning large amounts of money, or achieving public fame and
status. And it's easy to see what's wrong with victim feminism: it's boring,
prudish, and disempowering.

So, I agree that there
are some qualities in Wolf's account of power feminism which are worth
supporting and defending, and there are some qualities in her victim feminism
which are worth avoiding or abandoning. But as I'll show later, her division of
these qualities into the two forms of feminism is deeply problematic.

In general, we need to
question these models of two traditions of feminism themselves. Are they
coherent, accurate, reasonable and indeed useful accounts?

A SEDUCTIVE MODEL

I am very aware that
Wolf's model of VF and PF is a seductive one. And in fact I'm quite worried that
you [the students] will take on this model, without thinking critically about
its logic, accuracy or implications. But I am probably underestimating your
critical abilities, your theoretical 'crap detectors'.

Wolf's model is seductive
for a number of reasons.

-- First, it works by way
of a simple binary, with the good feminism on one side and the bad feminism on
the other side. Binaries have a certain conceptual 'grab' on our minds - they're
everywhere in our culture, and present easy ways of understanding social issues.

One of the most powerful
binaries, which much of feminism has critiqued, is the binary between male and
female, masculine and feminine.

-- Also, it resonates
with, taps into, an important theme in Western capitalist cultures, of
individual empowerment and self-help. There are two sources for this: from
consumer culture and capitalism, an individualistic small-l liberal ethic of 'Be
what you want to be, do you want to do, baby.' And from discourses of pop
psychology and therapy, which are increasingly widespread, an ethic that anyone
can achieve personal happiness, wellbeing, and power through individual effort.
If you watch late-night TV such as telemall shopping as I sometimes do, you'll
hear the words of Anthony Robbins, a popular star of these telemall TV shows. He
says that anyone can achieve "passion, profit, power" if they try hard enough
and in the right ways, or in fact if they listen to his tapes.

Wolf's account is
optimistic, upbeat, etc. And I like optimism, while I disagree with the
specifics of Wolf's vision of how we'll achieve gender equality.

-- Because there are some
grains of truth, some insights, in Wolf's account. While I'll explore later in
the lecture.

-- CRITICISMS &
ASSESSMENT OF WOLF'S ACCOUNT -- THE CONTEXT FOR WOLF'S AND SIMILAR ACCOUNTS

It is important first of
all to place Wolf's book in its cultural, political and academic context. Here
I'm drawing on hooks' account in your readings.

As we have emphasised in
earlier weeks in this course, early second wave feminist theory developed in an
intimate relationship with the newly emergent women's movements. There was an
intimate relationship between feminist politics and feminist theory, between
efforts at personal and social change and the development of feminist
understandings of society.

In the three decades of
recent feminisms however, there has been a marked shift. Feminist thought is now
institutionalised to some degree in the academy or university, and popular
feminist books are very successful [hooks, 1996: 58]. As bell hooks writes, much
of the recent popular work labelled feminist "does not emerge from active
feminist struggle and engagement with feminist movement or even collaborative
feminist thinking" [58]. hooks describes the atmosphere and processes of her and
other feminist's development of feminist ideas and theory. This involved and
involves vigorous discussion and debate, rigorous critique, a preoccupation with
the issues rather than with one's status, and a shared passion for a feminist
project [58].

In contrast, some young
college-educated women coming to feminist thinking do so in very different
circumstances, and as hooks writes, it is tempting for them to produce
self-indulgent and opportunistic writing with little concern for advancing
feminist movement. It is tempting also to deflect critique by claiming that one
is under attack by older feminists, and to ignore issues of race and class.
hooks gives Roiphe and Wolf as examples [59].

While Wolf says that she
supports dissent, there is no sign that she has constructively engaged with
ideas different from her own [hooks, 1996: 60]. Her false dichotomy of Victim
Fem'm versus Power Fem'm is perhaps the best example of this.

In fact, hooks interprets
Wolf's dismissal of other feminists as reflecting the internalisation of sexism
and an ethic of competition between women in patriarchal society [hooks, 1996:
60]. Interestingly, Jenna Mead in her anthology Bodyjamming makes a similar
criticism of Helen Garner's First stone. She says that Garner's account of two
feminist conspiracies, one against the Master of Ormond College and one against
Garner herself, as well as Garner's scorn for the two young women, reflects an
ancient code in which women reinforce women's place in a patriarchal hierarchy
[Mead, 1997: 13]. Fire with fire manipulates the meaning and message of much
feminist thought according to hooks, such that Wolf can present herself as the
lone hero "power feminist" [61].

Later I make a series of
further criticisms of Wolf's account.

PROBLEMS WITH THE MODEL
OF 'VICTIM FEMINISM'

There are a number of
criticisms made of feminism in relation to women as victims and the
victimisation of women, and it's important to recognise that Wolf is only making
some of them. This is complicated by the fact that Wolf seems to contradict
herself in various places.

The general claim made in
criticisms of 'victim feminism' is that feminism focuses too much on women as
victims, e.g. of men's violence or male power or patriarchy. By focusing on
women's vulnerability to rape and sexual harassment and domestic violence,
feminism ironically makes women feel helpless and disempowers them [Brant & Too,
1994: 6]. Women are represented as passive, weak, and always and ever the
victims. Victim feminism downplays and underestimates women's capacity to
achieve positions of power and authority.

Wolf agrees with this
general claim. For her, one of the most pressing problems symbolised by victim
feminism is that it positions victim status itself as a source of strength and
identity [Wolf, 1993: 154]. However, Wolf does not support other criticisms of
victim feminism or of a focus in feminism on women's victimisation.

So I'll run through these
criticisms, giving Wolf's position on each and offering some commentary of my
own.

-- 'Turning women into
victims' (a) by speaking of and analysing women's victimisation.

One criticism of
contemporary feminism is the argument that by naming and analysing the harms
done to women, feminist women turn women into victims. Another version of this
argument goes that, by documenting the conflicts and inequalities between men
and women, feminisms have started a gender war.

These arguments work
through an inverted logic. So, by identifying the ways in which women are the
victims for example of sexual harassment and rape, feminism somehow turns them
into victims? But I would respond, well, they already are victims, although of
course this is not all they are. Feminism simply describes this, and of course
protests it.

The same response can be
made to the related argument that feminists have started a sex war. Feminists
haven't started a "war between the sexes", they've just named it. Feminists
simply have named the inequalities, conflicts and injustices built into
contemporary gender relations. Although I should point out that I think most
feminists would be critical of terming this a "war between the sexes", despite
the media's enthusiasm for such models. For example, a "war between the sexes"
model represents both women and men as fixed members of unified and opposed
categories. It ignores the multiple and cross-cutting interests possessed by
individual women and men, as well as by groups and communities of both women and
men.

The argument that we
'turn women into victims' by speaking about victimisation can only work if we
deny the reality of that victimisation in the first place. For example, by
denying the reality of the violences which many women experience. And doing this
is very difficult indeed, given that this violence is now very well documented.
Wolf seems to agree with this. She criticises the idea that analysing the real
harms done to women turns women into 'victims'. The very point of such analysis
is that women are not natural victims, that women have will and intelligence and
will use this feminist analysis in active ways [Wolf, 1993: 153].

-- 'Turning women into
victims' (b) By focusing too much on women's victimisation.

However, elsewhere in
Fire with fire, Wolf does make a related argument, that one strand of feminism
focuses too much on women's victimisation. This is not an original argument, in
that this criticism frequently has been directed at sections of radical feminism
and at American anti-pornography feminism in particular.

Sometimes this criticism
is based on a mis-reading of feminist arguments about violence and sexual
harassment. Critics have sometimes assumed that when feminists emphasise women's
right to say 'no', they neglect women's right also to say 'yes' [Brant & Too,
1994: 6].

However, I do think that
there is some merit in Wolf's claims here, and this is an argument that I've
made myself, drawing on a variety of other feminist commentators.

One common criticism for
example of radical feminist arguments is that they are 'essentialist' - that
they involve arguments about men or women which assume that they have an
essential nature, something in their biological or metaphysical makeup which
makes them the way they are. Another term similar to essentialism is 'biological
determinism'. The idea that radical feminism is essentialist has become a
standard claim. However, this is more folklore than fact, and the actual
writings of radical feminists show more hope for change and less biological
determinism than such claims allow.1 Wolf claims that 'victim feminism' is
essentialist, and later in the lecture I question her interpretation here as
well.

However, some authors
identified with radical feminism, and with Wolf's 'victim feminism', do give
accounts which are socially determinist. They represent male power or patriarchy
as everwhere and not easily changed [Heise, 1995: 124]. So this is a kind of
socio-cultural determinism, which is fairly pessimistic about the possibilities
for non-oppressive relations between men and women. And well before Wolf's Fire
with fire came along, other feminist authors were disagreeing with such
accounts. Other feminist authors emphasised that men's power is not total, that
there is room for local resistance to and renegotiation of power relations. And
they argued that we should continue to recognise women's agency, women's ability
to act, in heterosexual sexual relations, and women's sexual pleasure as well.

Some of the early
feminist literature on men's violence and on pornography also shows a monolithic
and totalised model of men and masculinity as uniformly aggressive and
predatory. As the popular slogan goes, "All men are potential rapists." This
slogan was important in emphasising that the men who use violence against women
are not deranged psychopaths but 'normal' and 'ordinary' men. But it runs the
risk of representing men as all the same. Men are conceived of as having
collective and uniform political interests as a "sex class".

This kind of account
neglects the culture, history and diversity of forms of violence, different men
and masculinities, and the diverse ways, times and places in which these are all
expressed. Lynne Segal argues for example that race and class relations
structure different forms of masculinity, and in turn produce differing
likelihoods for violence. While she criticises some feminists' insistence that
all men are alike in terms of the individual threat they pose to women, she
agrees that the societal equation of masculinity with aggressiveness encourages
and condones male violence against women [Segal, 1990: 254].

Men's own experience of
sexual practices and relations demonstrates that there is more going on than
just male dominance. Clearly there are ways in which the practices of masculine
sexuality give men power and control over women. On the other hand, as Lynne
Segal states, "for many men it is precisely through sex that they experience
their greatest uncertainties, dependence and deference in relation to women - in
stark contrast, quite often, with their experience of authority and independence
in the public world." [212]

So, Wolf's criticisms of
a strand of feminism do have substance. Similar criticisms have been made before
by a stream of feminist commentators, and typically they've been made with more
precision, rigour and sympathy than Wolf herself shows. It's also noticeable
that Wolf ignores these debates and the substantial literature on the tensions
between pleasure and danger in feminist accounts, and she writes as if she were
the only one to have arrived at such insights.

-- That feminism
exaggerates the extent of violence against women. And that the definitions of
violence have expanded too far.

Another criticism of
'victim feminism' is that feminism over-estimates or exaggerates the extent of
violence against women. Wolf responds that this claim denies the realities of
the victimisation of women [Wolf, 1993: 152]. She says we need to recognise this
violence, but also hang onto an emphasis on autonomy and sexual freedom [ibid:
152].

A related claim is that
feminists have expanded the definitions of violence, rape or sexual harassment
too far. The definitions now are so broad that they are meaningless, or they
lump together behaviours which are really very different in terms of their
impact or seriousnes, or they include behaviours and interactions which are
'normal' or 'trivial' and not really forms of rape or harassment.

So in The first stone for
example, Garner writes of two young women's seeming over-reaction to what she
calls "nerdish passes at a party" [38]. Of course, others have argued that this
trivialises what occurred, and in particular, it neglects the power relations at
stake between the male Master of a College and a young female student resident
at that College.

Wolf is more ambivalent
than Garner. She insists for example

that we talk about rape
and sexual harassment with greater specificity so that crimes can be prosecuted
with the utmost severity while we create more careful demarcations of harm that
reflect the complexity of women's real experiences. [Wolf, 1993: 153]

On the one hand, Wolf
defends and expresses her support for the movements against rape and sexual
harassment, and she criticises the trivialisation of date rape and attacks on
date rape statistics [205-6].

On the other hand, Wolf
says that in "a few rare but definite moments", activists failed to acknowledge
different levels of female victimisation [206]. She gives examples of these. For
example, where what occurred was offensive, sexual and involved power
imbalances, but was not 'rape' [208-9]. And the sexual harassment policies of
some schools, in which sexual contact, joking and teasing are judged to be
innately abusive [209]. Wolf agrees that it is important for men to learn to
establish consent, and consent is sexy, but she adds that, "The other side of
the feminist demand for men to learn to listen should be feminist responsibility
for women to learn to speak." [207] Although I would respond here that feminists
have been doing this, and in fact that there's been far more attention to
empowering women than there has to teaching men how to negotiate consent and
stop being coercive.

So here Wolf takes a
'middle-ground' position, criticising those who trivialise genuine crimes e.g.
of date rape, and those who generalise all inappropriate behaviour as harassment
[211]. She says that she's interested in women being able to "simultaneously
embrace sex and fight rape" [206].

The issue of definitions
of violence is another area where Wolf neglects existing feminist scholarship.
She fails to draw for example on the key feminist idea of a continuum of sexual
violence. You may remember from the tutes that we highlighted a range of
insights that accompany this idea. The idea of a 'continuum of sexual violence'
enables one to document and name the range of abusive and coercive experiences
of women, that cannot readily be distinguished from each other and do not
necessarily fit into a given category. It draws attention to the links between
'sledgehammer' behaviours, ones which are extreme and dramatic - rape, child
abuse and sexual murder - and 'dripping tap' behaviours and incidents, which are
mundane, everyday and ordinary [Stanley & Wise, 1987]. The idea of a continuum
suggests that all the different forms of sexual violence are serious and have
effects, while women's definitions of the events and their impacts vary at the
time and over time.

-- That women seek legal
redress too quickly, they're 'whining'

-- Critics of 'victim
feminism' have also depicted feminists as 'crying wolf' over harms which are
imagined or only slight, and their objections to injustice as 'whining' and as
part of a 'culture of complaint' [Wolf, 1993: 153].

This argument is evident
in the question which drives the narrative of Garner's The first stone: "Why did
they go to the cops?". Garner understands this as a gross overreaction by the
young women concerned, which she describes as "appallingly destructive, priggish
and pitiless" [16]. And more broadly, she argues that many of today's young
feminist women are "consumed by rage and fear" [47], and that there is a climate
of feminist sexual prescriptivism. In essence, feminism has 'gone too far', as
part of a general shift towards 'political correctness' [11].

Garner is very critical
of the young women's use of legal redress. She ignores the fact of their efforts
over at least six months to sort out the matter with the College Council, their
attempts at negotiation and conciliation. She downplays the institutional
inertia of the college [Trioli, citing Edgar, 1996: 34], and the fact that the
women did try other avenues but these failed. But perhaps most importantly for
this case, Garner neglects issues of institutional power in what occurred.

There are a number of
problems with the argument that women or feminists are over-reacting, 'crying
wolf', over behaviours which are only trivial or even fictional. [summary]

Such behaviours are not
trivial, but have real effects. And certainly they not fictional.

Most women don't rush to
the cops and the courts. There are important barriers to the use of legal
remedies.

There are various reasons
why women who are sexually harassed (and sexually assaulted) do not report this.
E.g., to do with their definitions of the behaviour, and dominant definitions of
violence.

When women protest harms,
this does not 'turn them into victims', but does the opposite.

First, it is abundantly
clear that young women today, and indeed women in general, are not rushing to
report such behaviours as sexual harassment or seeking legal redress [Trioli,
1996: 38-39]. The vast majority of incidents of workplace sexual harassment
never reach the stage of formal complaint [Morgan, 1997: 102]. As Trioli in your
readings argues, legal remedies are not easily used in a casual or reckless way.
And there are many barriers to a legal claim, including financial, procedural,
legal, and strategic barriers [Trioli, 1996: 36-37].

In fact, when women are
sexually harassed, their most common responses are 'internally focused', and
include denial, endurance, psychological detachment from the situation, and
blaming themselves [Thomas & Kitzinger, 1997: 10]. Among women's 'externally
focused' responses, the most common one is avoidance, and also appeasement
[ibid]. Many women respond to sexual harassment by resigning, changing jobs,
changing accomodation, and so on. Also, large public organisations use internal
procedures, and private sector organisations settle complaints with money, so
again sexual harassment avoids the courts [Morgan, 1995: 103].

There are several other
factors which inhibit the reporting of the kinds of behaviours about which
Garner and others say women are running to the cops and the courts. Firstly,
women's own definitions of the situation may not include naming behaviours as
sexual harassment or sexual assault. In both large-scale surveys and qualitative
studies, women will report behaviour which fits the definition of sexual
harassment - unwanted sexual attention - but they don't necessarily name it as
sexual harassment [Thomas & Kitzinger, 1997: 9]. And women will describe
incidents where they were coerced or pressured into having sex, but which they
did not define as rape or sexual assault at the time [Kelly, 1996: 200]. In
Kelly's study in your readings for example, some women said it wasn't rape
because they stopped resisting after a certain point or because the man was
someone known to them [ibid: 200].

Also, it can be harder
for women to name and object to unwanted sexual behaviour in the workplace if
they are in jobs which are highly sexualised or gendered, as Helen [Keane]
pointed out in the lectures. Secretarial work for example is highly organised by
gender and involves an intimate, gendered and heterosexualised relationship
between female secretaries and male bosses [Thomas & Kitzinger, 1997: 11]. In
such workplaces it is harder to object to these normative forms of sexualisation
[ibid: 11]. Thomas and Kitzinger also mention another factor, the socialisation
of women in the patriarchal values of particular institutions, for example of
medical school, so that they ignore sexual harassment as part of learning an
occupational identity [ibid: 11].

Wolf again rejects the
argument that women and feminists are 'whining' over things which are only minor
or trivial. She points out that white men's many complaints about various
aspects of culture or politics are not treated this way, but given legitimacy
and status. Perhaps she would agree with Virginia Trioli, that arguments such as
those by Garner and her supporters represent a backlash to women's right to seek
legal redress for behaviours such as sexual harassment [Trioli, 1996: 39]. They
are an attempt to move these intrusive, unwanted and coercive behaviours back
out of the realm of community standards and lawful behaviour, into the realm of
the personal [ibid: 39].

Another version of the
criticism of 'victim feminism' is that women who complain of sexual harassment,
women who seek justice or compensation for or acknowledgement of the violence
done to them, turn themselves into victims.

Wolf disagrees with this
as well. She emphasises that it is not the act of protesting against harm that
is the problem [Wolf, 1993: 153-54]. And others point out that such critics fail
to recognise the support and celebration of strength among those campaigning
against harassment and rape [Brant & Too, 1994: 6]. It takes courage to say that
one has been raped or harassed. Especially when the women and men who do may be
treated poorly by the law courts and disbelieved by those around them.

Speaking out, taking
action, seeking legal redress - these are precisely about refusing to be a
victim. So for example, one of the two complainants in the Ormond College case
writes that the experience of the case for her was about "resistance - about
refusing to be a victim, refusing to shut up, and refusing to be done over."
[XX, 1997: 62]

There's a further point
to be made here. The image of the powerless, weak and complaining woman
presented to us by critics of 'victim feminism' is not the invention of feminism
[Brant & Too, 1994: 6-7]. Instead, it's a misogynist or woman-hating invention,
and feminism rejects this stereotype of women. This is despite the fact that
women who have been subjected to violence and who are more assertive or
powerful, i.e. women who don't fit the stereotype of the powerless victim, may
be treated more harshly by the law [ibid: 7].2

-- A victim identity

However, Wolf does run a
more subtle version of this argument, criticising some of contemporary feminism
for focusing too heavily on women's victimisation, and for turning victim status
into an identity. As I mentioned earlier, one of her main criticisms of 'victim
feminism' is that supposedly it positions victim status itself as a source of
strength and identity [Wolf, 1993: 154]. This isn't just bad for feminism, it's
bad for individual women. Women's self-image and emotional health is harmed by
defining or identifying themselves as victims, instead of as powerful and
effective, and victim feminism entrenches women in apathy and despair [228].

Again I believe that Wolf
grossly exaggerates this phenomenon. She seems entirely unaware of two shifts in
women's services and feminist theory. One, there has been a shift towards
speaking and writing of 'survivors' of violence. The word 'survivor' is used
either instead or alongside the word victim. It is intended to emphasise that
women are not simply the passive victims of men's or indeed women's violence,
but that women also resist, fight back, escape and mobilise. The shift in
portrayal of those subject to violence, from passive 'victims' to active
'survivors', has come in particular from women's refuges, anti-violence centres
and groups [Maynard & Winn, 1997: 179]. Of course, those who use the word
'survivor' also acknowledge that sometimes women don't survive.

The second shift is that
services to do with violence, such as the Domestic Violence Crisis Service here
in Canberra, increasingly don't use the word 'victim' at all, or the word
'perpetrator'. Instead, they speak of women who are subjected to violence, and
they speak of men who use violence. This is motivated by the desire to separate
behaviour and identity.

I agree that there is a
growing trend in modern Western societies to adopt a 'victim' identity, but Wolf
is wrong to blame feminism for this. Instead, it's part of a general cultural
shift, in which injustices and harms done to people increasingly are
individualised and psychologised, especially through the language of therapy.

THE CATEGORIES OF 'VICTIM
FEMINISM' AND 'POWER FEMINISM'

One of the strongest
criticisms that can be made of Wolf's account concerns the categories of 'victim
feminism' and 'power feminism' themselves. Her categories are inaccurate,
incoherent, internally contradictory, and arbitrary.

Firstly, in Wolf's
description of the key characteristics of victim feminism, there is a lumping
together of a collection of stereotypes, understandings and misperceptions from
a variety of strands of feminism. Wolf picks out the worst stereotypes of a
variety of strands of feminism, including anti-pornography feminism, radical
feminism, ecofeminism, and socialist and Marxist feminisms. These include the
claims that such strands are sexually judgemental and anti-sex, they see
violence and aggressiveness as essentially male, they see women as closer to
nature, naturally cooperative and peace-loving, and they are anti-capitalist.
Then Wolf lumps all these together and gives them a new label, "victim
feminism". In fact she acknowledges this in a later chapter, saying that victim
feminism is a composite, an intermingling of various feminist strands [156].
Wolf inverts these stereotypes to create her model of 'power feminism'.

But the problem is that
actual feminists, and the theoretical frameworks with which they're associated,
don't fit well into the categories which Wolf asserts. For example, one
important area of feminist debate has been over sexuality, and these debates
have been so passionate sometimes that people refer to these as the 'feminist
sex wars'. 'Feminist sex radicals', who represent one 'side' of these debates,
emphasise sexual freedom and the possibilities for sexual pleasure, arguing that
sexuality is a site of both pleasure and danger. According to Wolf then, women
such as Carole Vance and Gayle Rubin are 'power feminists'. But these same women
are not pro-capitalist, and in fact they combine their pro-sex feminism with a
strong left-wing politics. So this important strand of feminist theorising and
activism simply doesn't fit into Wolf's two categories.

-- Inaccurate:

The criticism that victim
feminism is essentialist

In Chapter Ten Wolf
spends about eight pages outlining the "Core mythology of victim feminism". She
is primarily concerned with two aspects here: the essentialist account of
gender, and the reluctance to take up forms of power which are traditionally
male.

Wolf argues that victim
feminism involves the myth of a harmonious and peaceful past based on 'female
values'. Evil is confined to men, and institutionalised in patriarchy [157]. Men
are inclined towards hierarchy, domination and separation, while women are
inclined towards egalitarianism, communication and connection [157]. Men to
objectification, women to commitment, men to killing, women to giving life, and
so on.

Wolf's problem is not
with the values themselves which are seen as essentially female. Her problem is
with the portrayal of particular values, forms of behaviour and ways of knowing
as essentially male or female, as fundamentally gendered rather than simply
human [157]. She supports the valuing and integration into public life of values
and traits which have been seen as stereotypically feminine, but rejects
essentialist claims about them.

I think that's a pretty
good idea. But the problem is in the claim of essentialism, as I think that this
is largely inaccurate.

Wolf implies that this
essentialist thinking is common or typical in feminism (although earlier she had
said that victim feminism is a minority position within feminism). However, if
you look at the footnotes, you realise that the entire account in this chapter
is based only on two books. Of the quotes that Wolf uses to substantiate her
depiction, all come from the same two works. What's more, both books are on
ecofeminism, and thus represent a literature only of one particular strand of
feminism.

Ecofeminism is a strand
of feminism which has been subject to feminist critique for its essentialism,
with good reason. However, Wolf fails to acknowledge the substantial feminist
debates about essentialism, and the substantial shifts for example in feminist
understandings of war and militarism. And she neglects the widespread feminist
effort to break down the very 'gender binaries' she criticises, the divisions of
traits into masculine and feminine, male and female.

My second criticism of
Wolf's category of 'victim feminism' is that it is arbitrary (and that she
generalises inappropriately from personal experience).

In Chapter Eleven titled
"Case studies", Wolf contrasts two tales, the victim feminism tale of the rape
crisis centre, and the power feminism tale of the Clerical and Technical
Workers' Local 34 strike.

Wolf puts the boot into
the rape crisis centre. She argues that the decor, the atmosphere and the
centre's decision-making process all showed an investment in misery and
insufficiency and self-sacrifice [164-65]. There was a culture of hopelessness
and weakness which wore down the workers, a "hierarchy of miserable
saintliness". There was no celebration of triumphs, congratulation at survival,
laughter or education work, and they "never let [themselves] enjoy feeling
strong" [168]. Those women who worked at the centre chose to "make female victim
status into our main source of identity, and even of prestige" [167].

If Wolf's depiction is
accurate (and we don't know when she was there or which one it was), then it is
a depiction of life as she saw it at one rape crisis centre. Wolf gives no
references, and does not draw on accounts or experiences of workers or clients
at any other rape crisis centres, although there are hundreds. So, this is a
neat example of individual experience being generalised into a wider claim. For
example, this is a depiction which is light years away from the character of the
Rape Crisis Centre here in Canberra and of those elsewhere in Australia.

Wolf contrasts the Rape
crisis centre with the story of a successful strike and industrial action by the
Clerical and Technical Workers' Union, a largely female union at Yale
University. Wolf tells the story of the development of union, the mobilisation
of workers, and a series of industrial actions which culminated in positive
changes at the university.

I think Wolf's account is
arbitrary here. I think that you could actually reverse the two accounts, so
that the story of the Rape crisis centre becomes one of power feminism and the
story of the union becomes one of victim feminism.

Wolf could tell the story
of the development of rape crisis centres and of the feminist anti-rape movement
in a way which represents the qualities she associates with 'power feminism'.
She could describe the spirit of personal empowerment and self-help which
inspired this development, the initial mobilisations, the enormous hope and
optimism and courage of the early pioneers of rape crisis centres and refuges
and phonelines, and the fundamental belief that women deserve better which
framed these efforts.

Wolf says that power
feminists are those who assume that "women can marshall their power and win",
and that "where the system works unfairly, women should use their resources to
force it to change, rather than pleading for kinder treatment on the basis of
victim status." [179] Again, this is exactly what has been done in the feminist
anti-rape movement, with successful efforts to change rape laws, to increase
judges' awareness, and to fund and produce community education campaigns.

Wolf represents the
Clerical and Technical Workers' Union as succeeding in their campaign, while the
Rape crisis centre eventually failed and closed. A further point regarding these
two is that the success or failure of the two campaigns is not simply a function
of their own style and content. It is also a function of the situation in which
the action occurs, the presence of support from other sections of the community,
the strength of the opposition, and the general cultural climate. The union was
able to attract substantial support from students and staff at the university,
and given its position it had the power to disrupt the powers that be (via
strikes and pickets) and force change. Arguably the rape crisis centre is
unlikely to attract the same level of support, for example because attitudes
supportive of rape are still widespread in the community, and it did not have
the same institutional power to force change.

It is almost as if Wolf's
framework can only be applied after the fact, only in hindsight. Those feminist
efforts which are less successful are victim feminism, while those feminist
efforts which are more successful are power feminism. If this is true, then
Wolf's framework is not very useful as a descriptive or explanatory framework.

CRITICISMS OF THE VF/PF
DIVISION ITSELF

Wolf's division between
victim feminism and power feminism is arbitrary. It is incoherent. And some of
the groups and individuals to whom she applies each term themselves object to
her categories.

[Contradictory and
incoherent] Listing actions which are representative of power feminism, Wolf
concentrates on efforts to increase women's numbers in political decision-making
[175-77]. But she includes feminist action on issues which elsewhere she has
associated with 'victim feminism', such as rape in war, fashion, and domestic
violence.

Wolf includes in power
feminism the effort by feminist lawyers to define sex crimes against women as
human rights abuses. This is power feminism because it's pro-active and reflects
women's agency. But Wolf fails to note or realise that the feminist lawyers she
praises include women such as Catherine MacKinnon, a woman who Wolf describes 22
pages earlier as 'focusing on female victimisation at the expense of female
agency' [154]. So in Wolf's category of 'good' power feminism, there are
feminists and issues who she has labelled or associated instead with victim
feminism.

Wolf's categories are
contradictory. On the one hand, she includes in victim feminism the exclusion of
men from Take Back the Night rallies [173]. On the other, she counts as power
feminism an eight-day broadcast by an all-woman radio station [175]. She
emphasises that power feminism is into both fun and social change, quoting the
slogan, 'If I can't dance, it's not my revolution' [150]. But this slogan was
coined by Emma Goldman, a famous left-wing anarchist feminist, and one who would
be very critical of Wolf's pro-capitalist power feminism.

Some of the groups and
individuals to whom Wolf applies each term themselves object to her categories.
She includes the famous African-American feminist bell hooks among power
feminists, but as your readings show, hooks herself is deeply critical of Wolf's
framework. And it is likely that other feminist groups she includes, such as the
Women's Action Coalition and Guerilla Girls also would object to being included
in Wolf's 'power feminism'.

'POWER FEMINISM'

Unlike other authors such
as Roiphe or Denfeld, Wolf does suggest a constructive program for feminism,
which of course she terms 'power feminism'. Part Five of Fire with fire, its
final section, focuses on power feminism in action, and here Wolf outlines her
program for change.

There are several
significant problems also in Wolf's program for change. Her power feminism
includes movements and practices which we may not wish to support. Like victim
feminism, it is internally contradictory. And most importantly, it assumes a
certain kind of privilege.

Wolf's 'power feminism'
celebrates some movements and shifts which are deeply problematic for or even
dangerous for women. The best example here is her support for the push to
increase women's ownership of guns. Wolf describes the fact that 1 in 9 American
women, or 12 million women, have legally acquired a handgun [230]. She
represents women's gun ownership as a refusal of victim status and a rejection
of victimisation [234].

Wolf uncritically accepts
the argument of such bodies as the National Rifle Association and Women & Guns
magazine that having a gun is an effective and successful means of self-defence
for women. The fact is, having a gun in the home dramatically increases the
likelihood that a woman or another family member will be shot. In the U.S., gun
ownership is most strongly associated with a homicide at the hands of a family
member or intimate acquaintance. In other words, gun ownership is more likely to
lead to more women being shot.

Wolf's account of the
magazine Women & Guns again demonstrates the incoherence of Wolf's
classifications of victim feminism and power feminism. The women she quotes use
a kind of feminist language to describe their gun ownership, but use phrases
which came out of the anti-rape movement, for example of 'taking back the
night'. [232]. But Wolf has located the anti-rape movement as part of 'victim
feminism'. And on the other hand, she is praising women's involvement in
self-defence as an example of power feminism, and yet women's self-defence is a
strong emphasis in feminist anti-rape circles, which she associates with victim
feminism.

ASSUMPTIONS OF PRIVILEGE,
ERASURE OF RACE AND CLASS

But the biggest problem
with Wolf's power feminism is its assumption of privilege.

One of the most serious
problems with Fire with fire is Wolf's erasure of race and class. Wolf gives lip
service to a politics of inclusion, and sometimes celebrates the achievements of
particular black women. But her category "woman" in fact universalises the
experiences of white privileged women [hooks, 1996: 62]. And she ignores
feminist work by women of colour.

Wolf's assumptions of
privilege are clearest in her account of 'power feminism'. The resources and
strategies on which she says women can draw, in fact are only available to a
privileged group, while they exclude many other women and men [hooks, 1996:
62-63].

Wolf claims that now in
Western capitalist countries, enough women in the middle classes have the money
and clout to change things, the political infrastructure is in place after
twenty-five years of feminist activism, and even that women are the new
political ruling class. Here Wolf reveals herself, like Katie Roiphe and Rene
Denfeld, to be speaking from a deeply elitist and naive position [Siegel, 1997:
75-76].

In Australia for example,
feminist activism did result in the establishment of a 'femocracy', a network of
feminists and women-oriented bodies in policy-making and government. But we've
also seen how tenuous and fragile this success can be, as the Howard Liberal
government has slashed and burned these networks.

So Wolf has an overly
rosy and optimistic account of the 'genderquake', i.e. of the extent of change
in gender relations. 'Power feminism' glosses over the suffering and inequity
that are still part of many women's lives. As Rapping in your readings argues,
gender power imbalances are still vast and much institutional power is still in
the hands of rich straight white men [Rapping, 1996: 273]. But we should not go
to the other extreme to power feminism, to claim that nothing has changed [ibid:
267]. Rapping argues that we need to take stock of where male hegemony and power
have been dented or undermined [273].

Power feminism, whether
one hundred years ago or in the last decade, sees money as crucial to
independence and emphasises women's self-reliance (as well as seeing men as
partners in the struggle) [Wolf, 1993: 187]. Wolf does briefly acknowledge the
danger in this view, in writing that this model's "stress on rights and female
individualism may lead the luckier or more successful to overlook those who are
less so." But this acknowledgement does not shift the general orientation
towards privilege which power feminism represents.

A LIBERAL FEMINIST TEXT

Fire with fire is
essentially a liberal feminist text, and much of her book is a re-working of
reformist liberal feminist notions [hooks, 1996: 64]. The book's title comes
from the proverb, "Fight fire with fire", and this is a key message of the book:
That women should use the tools of government, democracy and capitalism - tools
which have traditionally been in male hands - to achieve equality for women.
This is the defining feature of power feminism.

Wolf refers to Audre
Lorde's famous phrase, "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's
house," and reverses it to argue that women can use the master's tools to 'open
up', as she puts it, the master's house [Wolf, 1993: 186]. This is a classic
liberal feminist argument: that feminism should push democracy to live up to its
own self-definition, such that all citizens, women included, have equal
opportunity. As a liberal feminist framework, Wolf's account is vulnerable to
the established critiques of liberal feminism. One criticism is that Wolf does
not challenge dominant notions of power or political power, but simply takes
them as given. Her argument is not strongly oriented towards destabilising or
confronting traditional power, but towards women occupying and claiming these
forms of power.

However, Wolf's arguments
slide into some of the more obvious dangers of liberal feminism. For example,
despite Wolf's claim that left-wing feminism is her "own personal brand" of
feminism, she is strongly pro-capitalist. She assumes that capitalist power is
synonymous with liberation and self-determination, as hooks criticises [hooks,
1996: 62]. Her identification with left politics is hollow, and contradicted by
her depiction of left-wing feminism as dogmatic and lacking visionary thinking
[hooks, 1996: 64].

PROBLEMS WITH HER ACCOUNT
OF 'FEMINISM'

Wolf's 'power feminism'
is individualistic, small-l liberal and pro-capitalist, and this is reflected in
her definitions of feminism itself.

Firstly, Wolf says that
'feminism' describes "a theory of self-worth", equivalent to saying, "I am a
human being." [Wolf, 1993: 151] hooks argues that this depoliticises feminism:
feminism here is no longer a political movement, but a form of self-help [hooks,
1996: 63]. Feminism thus comes to mean, 'do what you want to do, be what you
want to be'. And as I said before, this is a familiar message, as it is repeated
also by consumer culture and capitalism and in the discourses of pop psychology
and therapy.

You may remember that in
Week 2 of the course, we looked at bell hook's 1984 article on feminism. In this
she criticises 'anything goes' definitions of feminism which make it
meaningless, and she criticises liberal definitions which focus on individual
woman's right to freedom and self-determination [hooks, 1997: 24]. She argues
instead that, "Feminism is a struggle to end sexist oppression." [ibid: 25].

Wolf does write that on
another level feminism is also "a humanistic movement for social justice" [152].
This is an improvement on the first definition, in bringing in questions of
questions of justice and injustice, inequality and oppression. But Wolf's
overall account is conservative enough that hooks calls it an "aggressive
assault on radical and revolutionary feminist thinking" [hooks, 1996: 62].

COMPARISONS WITH ROIPHE
AND DENFELD

In the supplementary
reading for the course, you've got Deborah Siegel's paper. Siegel says that
Naomi Wolf's, Katie Roiphe's and Rene Denfeld's books are similar in a number of
important ways. While all three writers seek to "reclaim feminism" for today's
women, their writing does not contribute to dialogue or keep feminism in
process. And all three substitute a part of second wave feminism for the whole
(metonymy) [Siegel, 1997: 59]. Siegel is especially disturbed that these zealous
accounts "are marketed and received as representative of an entire generation"
[65].

Siegel writes that,

Wolf, Roiphe, and Denfeld
create sensational, fictional accounts of a demonized feminism to satisfy a
"progressive" narrative structure that might be summarized [Š] as, "Down with
the 'bad' feminism and up with the 'good'!" [67]

They use "cartoonish
caricatures of contemporary feminists", reduce contemporary fem't debates to an
old rhetoric of equality versus difference. The books criticise a straw woman of
difference-feminism, and in its place, they suggest another straw woman called
"Agency! Power! Equality!" [68].

But there are also
differences between the three. Roiphe and Denfeld see 'victim feminism' as the
dominant form of feminism today, while Wolf sees it only as characteristic of a
small minority of feminists [Wolf, 1993: xvii]. While Wolf does have
constructive recommendations for action, in the form of 'power feminism',
Denfeld and Roiphe spend most of their respective books attacking feminism
[Siegel, 71]. Siegel argues that Roiphe's and Denfeld's arguments simply
reproduce a stock antifeminist plot, with the same arguments as in other forms
of anti-feminist backlash [66]. But what is distinctive about this backlash is
that it is carried out not against feminism but in its very name [81, citing
Modleski].

In particular, Siegel
criticises Wolf's, Roiphe's and Denfeld's historiography - their writing of
history. She says that all three demonstrate highly limited historiographic
readings of feminist movement [59]. Siegel problematises historical narratives
of feminism which generalise about 'this period', 'this wave' or 'this
movement'. I understand her to be warning against the dangers in such historical
accounts: they can be reductive and they can erase heterogeneity or internal
difference [61]. And in the case of the three authors I've been discussing,
their writings of feminist theory are deeply reductionist, inaccurate and often
destructive.

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

In this critical analysis
of Wolf's account of victim feminism and power feminism, implicitly I have been
been addressing several questions. And these questions are the kinds of
questions that are often asked in feminist theory and Women's Studies. They're
questions that you may want to practise asking and answering, as part of
learning the discipline. So I thought I would end by mentioning some of these
questions.

When you hear or read the
words 'woman' or 'women', ask, Which women? Which women, and men, are being
talked about, how are they being talked about, and how is gender understood? How
are other axes of difference - of race, class, sexuality, and age for example -
present or not present in these accounts?

When you hear or read the
word feminism, ask, Which feminism? Which feminism is the object of attention,
and what kind of feminist or other position does the writer write from?

And generally, when you
read categories, whether of victim and power feminisms or something else, ask,
How are these categories constructed, and what do they work to include and
exclude?

1 Jeffreys for example
writes, "The feminist fight against male violence requires the reconstruction of
male sexuality [Š] to sever the link between power and aggression and sexual
pleasure." [1990, 312-13]

2 Wolf does acknowledge
this at one point, saying that one source of some women's impulse to claim that
they are innocent victims is bias in the courts in relation to different types
of female victims [Wolf, 1993: 192].